WESTERN SKIES - June 18, 2005

*** TREATMENT AND RECOVERY ***

ERIC WHITNEY: Even with all the resources devoted to fighting illegal drugs, the state estimates there are still nearly a quarter of a million substance abusers in Colorado, some thirty thousand of whom are adolescents. That's one of the highest rates of substance abuse among the fifty states. But state spending on drug treatment, abuse prevention and research are among the lowest in America.

That's set to change as this year the legislature passed, and Governor Owens signed, a new law that brings Colorado more in line with other states. It will allow low-income addicts to use Medicaid to pay for drug treatment programs designed to help them kick their habits.

Western Skies intern Jon Wilson has this report on the state of treatment in Colorado, and some of the challenges facing drug users on the road to recovery.

JON WILSON: Thirty-five year old Jennifer, who doesn't want to use her last name, has been a crystal meth addict for almost half her life. She's clean now, but for sixteen years the Colorado women lived in a violent blur. Jennifer now helps other people escape addiction.

At a recent symposium convened by the state, to help lawyers, judges, social workers and treatment professionals understand methamphetamine, Jennifer talked about the strange isolated subculture of meth. The crowd hung on her every word.

JENNIFER: I was thinking last week, it's such a different world, they are two different worlds. And rarely do we collide. You know, when I was on that side, I wouldn't see you people. We don't operate in this lifestyle. We don't get up, we don't go to work. Everything happens at night.

JON WILSON: Jennifer says her addiction led to a trend common among meth users: she became violent, went to jail, and lost her kids. Her habit was expensive, and not just for her. According to a study performed by Columbia University, states spent thirteen percent of their budgets on dealing with the consequences of drinking and drugging habits in 1998. That means, the average American pays two hundred and seventy-seven dollars a year in taxes for substance abuse problems.

Of the forty-eight states Columbia surveyed, Colorado spent the least on treatment and prevention of substance abuse. Only six cents out of every one hundred dollars spent on substance abuse in Colorado went towards treating or preventing this behavior. The state spends far more dealing with its aftermath.

REP. ANDREW ROMANOFF: Right now the state spends a billion, that's a billion with a "B," dollars on the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse.

WILSON: Andrew Romanoff, a Denver Democrat, is the Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives. He says spending more on treating drug and alcohol addiction would be more fiscally responsible than what the state does now.

ROMANOFF: We pay for this problem in all sorts of ways. So to suggest that we can close our eyes and push our problem somewhere else, flies in the face of reality.

WILSON: At the beginning of the year, Colorado was one of only three states that didn't allows low income addicts to use Medicaid to pay for treatment. So Romanoff sponsored a bill to change that, which passed easily. Using Medicaid to pay for treatment looks expensive up front, Romanoff says, but saves money in the long run.

ROMANOFF: It turns out we have ten times as much money to spend on prison, we ought to be willing to free up some money for treatment to keep some folks out of prison. Other folks say drug and alcohol treatment is not one hundred percent effective. And they're right, it's not. But it doesn't have to be. If treatment were successful in a handful of cases, it would pay for itself. And to suggest that we need to reach a hundred percent effectiveness in order to fund drug and alcohol treatment is absurd. No program has that kind of success rate.

WILSON: It costs about twenty seven thousand dollars to keep someone in prison for a year. But drug treatment isn't necessarily cheap, either. Especially when it comes to methamphetamine.

Many treatment providers consider it to be the most addictive drug on the street. Janet Wood, the director of the Colorado Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division says that the so-called "poor man's cocaine" causes physical changes that don't just go away.

JANET WOOD: Because when it goes into the full blow addiction you've actually rewired your brain. And its like you or I needing water, oxygen, our brain is sending us messages that we have got to have that to survive. And without intervention, without treatment, you are not going to reverse that. So just putting someone in jail or prison, they will still come out, have their brain rewired and then they'll hit the street and go looking for that that drug. Seeking it.

WILSON: Wood says "re-wiring" an addicts brain through residential treatment, which usually lasts a month, can cost a patient anywhere between five thousand and ten thousand dollars.

Leroy Dies specializes in "intensive outpatient treatment," in Colorado Springs, which he says isn't cheap either. Especially if you're a meth addict.

LEROY DIES: It's nine hours of therapy a week for the client. It's at least two group therapy sessions and at least one more individual session. And that can run as high as twenty-five hundred dollars a month.

WILSON: Dies says it takes anywhere from six to twelve months to treat a meth addict. And, he guesses that only half of those who complete treatment stay on the wagon. And, in Colorado, more and more meth addicts are seeking treatment. In 1998, seven point seven percent of clients in treatment were there for meth. Today, that figure is closer to twenty percent.

For years, without Medicaid funding available, people trying to help meth addicts have had to improvise to meet demand.

DR. NICHOLAS TAYLOR: I want to introduced you to McGyevor based therapy.

WILSON: Dr. Nicholas Taylor is a treatment provider in Montrose, and a leading expert on the psychological effects of crystal meth. At the state-sponsored symposium on the drug, he described the style of treatment he named after a popular TV series from the 1980s.

TAYLOR: How did he solve problems? With duct tape, with wire, with a mousetrap, a swiss army knife, some matches, and some gum, and he's made an atom bomb, remember that? So he was the guy that, no matter what, he could make something out of nothing. And I think that really what we're talking about, especially where I am, I'm in rural Colorado where resources are thin, that effective treatment seems to be all about putting together what we can with what we've got. Who cares if it's not the top brand of duct tape? We're going to use it.

WILSON: Taylor is happy that the legislature OK'd Medicaid funding for treatment, but he is under no illusion that providers will suddenly have all the money they need to cure everyone who wants to escape from the clutches of methamphetamine.

BEAR: I just wanted to, I dunno, not be in the insanity.

WILSON: This man, who calls himself Bear, is another former addict turned treatment provider. He says it takes a lot for a meth addict to commit to, and stick treatment. Sometimes, he says, it takes a near takes a near death drug binge to clean up your act. But without treatment, Bear says, addicts will never be able to contribute to society.

BEAR: If you don't get people into recovery, they're never going to get a taste of it. You know, you use and you swing and you sell, and you do whatever you do, that's all you know. You don't know how to deal with everyday simple problems. I mean, we're talking simple little problems you don't know how to deal with. The only thing you know how to do, is if a problem comes up, "I'm going to go use, I'm going to go drink."

WILSON: For Western Skies I'm Jon Wilson.